Tag Archives: Bart Millard

Dan Muckala was named ASCAP’s Christian songwriter of the year Monday night at the organization’s 33rd annual Christian Music Awards at Richland Country Club in Nashville. Muckala had a hand in three of ASCAP’s most performed songs of the last year: “All of Creation” and “Beautiful,” both performed by MercyMe, and “Light Up the Sky” from The Afters.

The awards show was hosted by ASCAP vice president and managing executive, Nashville, Tim DuBois and recognized the organization’s most successful songwriters, artists and publishing companies in the Christian genre.

MercyMe won ASCAP’s Christian songwriter/artist of the year award and their nine-week No. 1 single “All of Creation” took home song of the year. Muckala and the song’s seven other co-writers (Brown Bannister and band members Jim Bryson, Nathan Cochran, Barry Graul, Bart Millard, Mike Scheuchzer and Robby Shaffer) were recognized for their part in writing the hit, as were publishers Banistuci Music, Kobalt Songs, Simpleville Music and Wet as a Fish Music.

EMI CMG Publishing was awarded Christian publisher of the year for the eighth year in a row. The company published six of ASCAP’s most played songs of the format this year: “Before the Morning,” “I Will Follow,” “Jesus Saves,” “Lead Me,” “My Help Comes From the Lord” and “Our God.”

DuBois and President and CEO of Provident Music Group Terry Hemmings presented Third Day with a Vanguard Award for the band’s “extraordinary impact on Christian music.”

In total, ASCAP recognized more than 20 of its most-played Christian songs at Monday's event.

Click to see a gallery of Jason Crabb and Crabb Family photos (this image of Crabb at his Hendersonville home: Sanford Myers/The Tennessean).

We haven’t seen Jason Crabb’s skills on the basketball court, but it wouldn’t be too tough to guess two aspects of his game: solid fundamentals and a firm hold on the fake out.

After all, here’s a singer who made his name as part of a Southern Gospel family act, and then, when it came time to record his self-titled solo debut, recruited two very different producers (veteran country producer Norro Wilson and one of Nashville’s funkiest cats, Tommy Sims) to craft a document best described as all over the musical map. The broadening certainly hasn’t hurt him: Crabb is up for six trophies at Wednesday’s GMA Dove Awards, including artist of the year.

That’s the best part for the former lead singer of The Crabb Family: He gets to walk around in a multitude of musical worlds right now, and he’s loving it.

“Probably a little too much, to be honest,” Crabb laughs. “A lot of people want to tell you you can only do one thing and that's it, but man, I've got so many different kinds of loves in music. It's kinda like going to a basketball player and saying, ‘You can only shoot jump shots from inside the lane’ or ‘You can only do lay-ups.’”Continue reading →